Soldier demoted for racy mud-wrestling

RALEIGH, N.C. — A female member of a National Guard military-police unit was demoted for indecent exposure after a mud-wrestling party at the Army-run Camp Bucca detention center in Iraq, a military spokesman said yesterday.

The party occurred Oct. 30, as the 160th Military Police Battalion, an Army Reserve unit from Tallahassee, Fla., prepared to turn over its duties to the Asheville, N.C.-based 105th Military Police Battalion, said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, spokesman for detainee operations at Camp Bucca.

In the course of the transfer of duties, "some individuals in their exuberance decided to put together a mud-wrestling thing," Johnson said yesterday by telephone. "There were females involved, and some members of the 105th also became involved, one female soldier in particular."

Following an inquiry, that soldier was demoted and placed on restriction for participating in the event, specifically for indecent exposure, he said.

The New York Daily News said it was given 30 photos from the party, and it printed several in yesterday's editions. The Daily News identified the demoted soldier as Deanna Allen, 19, and said she was demoted from specialist to private first class. She is still a guard at the camp, it said.

Allen's mother, Ladyna Waldrop of Black Mountain, N.C., said her daughter is devastated by the events.

"It was just a thing where she was coerced by a bunch of people, and with all the excitement, she lost her sanity for a moment and that's all it took," she said.

"It seems like they're just singling her out," Waldrop said. "She's the one getting all the publicity and punishment, and that's not right."

According to the Daily News, the women wrestlers were wearing only bras and panties and were surrounded by a cheering crowd of female and male soldiers, including noncommissioned officers. At one point, it said, a young blonde lifted her T-shirt to expose her breasts. A brunette turned her back to the camera and exposed her thong underwear.